WhyDirectMail?

Why Direct Mail?

In a digital age, email seems to be the way to go for marketing your product or service. Email is inexpensive, it’s easy to use, and nearly everyone has an email account. But that doesn’t mean direct mail is dead. In fact, direct mail is more effective than email for many marketing campaigns.

To start, direct mail is actually preferred by many customers. According to the USPS, 67% of Americans considered physical mail as more personal than the internet. That’s two thirds of the people surveyed, and it applies to everything—brochures, catalogs, news and updates—the preference is across the board. And it’s especially effective with younger consumers. USPS found that millennials are “far more likely than non-Millennials to read and engage with direct mail.”

And this preference shows in the results direct mail gets. Direct mail has a response rate of roughly 5% while email has a response rate of less than 1%. Businesses that use direct mail report that their mail campaigns generate 10% more customers than email.

And this isn’t just new customers. The DMA reports that 70% of customers have restarted a relationship because of direct mail. That’s because customers tend to keep direct mail much longer than emails. The average lifespan of a direct mail piece is 17 days, while the life of an email is measured in seconds.

Does this mean that direct mail is the perfect solution to your marketing problems? No, not necessarily. Direct mail is only one of the tools you have to reach your customers, and its effect is multiplied when combined with other tools. For example, customers spend 25 percent more when companies use direct mail and email marketing in combination with other marketing methods.